Spring Arts Guide 2025

Rain gets a bad rap. Sure, waterproof gear doesn’t breathe and is rarely stylish, but we all know the good that comes after a long shower. Rain falls on the wicked and the just no matter how they feel about carrying umbrellas.

Spring’s beauty lies in the promise that it’s coming. Unstoppable as the other seasons, spring offers the bonus of bringing back blooming life and the sunshine that even the most gothic of goth artists need for sweet vitamin D. Sure, beware the ides of March—in Portland, that means the threat of city-paralyzing snow hasn’t fully melted away. But don’t be so worried that you lose sight of buds bursting with color and scent.

Portland’s artists move on a similarly self-determined timetable. However they use the season of hibernation, spring is usually when they bounce back from seasonal affective disorder into their gloriously organized chaos. No matter how foul things get outside—speaking of weather or Washington, D.C.—they always reward Portlanders for their patience by pushing the needle forward into strange new territory.

For this year’s Spring Arts Guide, we celebrate artists reemerging alongside the shifting weather. Cover artist Jess Ackerman throws all of their disparate interests into their visual art, and will debut a new collection under fresh representation through Chefas Projects. Music producer Adrian Younge will use his concert series Jazz Is Dead to electrify Portland’s music scene with shows across the city from March to May. Portland Opera ventures into the classically terrifying young world of pop culture with its adaptation of The Shining. The mid-2010s avant-garde film series Boathouse Microcinema is once again screening experimental movies above the banks of the Willamette River. And Portland venues home to all mediums of art are rolling out their spring programming, offering a bouquet of concerts, exhibitions, screenings and stagings to keep art lovers buzzing up to summer.

Things might be gray today, but silver linings are out there for people who aren’t afraid to splash around Puddletown. —Andrew Jankowski, Assistant Arts & Culture Editor